Recently in Research: Gabby Gilmer

Gabby Gilmer, a junior in chemical engineering, began her undergraduate research involvement fall of her Sophomore year in Dr. Gretchen Oliver’s lab in the School of Kinesiology. Gabby’s research involves studying athletes who suffer from pain in different areas of the body and how that pain affects their athletic ability.

“I’m working on two different projects. The first project concerns how pain in different areas of the body affects the throwing mechanics of softball players,” Gabby said. “The purpose of the project is to see if generally people with pain in certain areas adjust their throwing mechanics to compensate for the pain.”

The second part of Gabby’s project will study novice handball players from the similar sports backgrounds to see if those athletes have similar throwing mechanics.

“We will look at youth baseball players and novice handball players to see if they have similar instability issues. It’s been found in previous studies that a lot of youth players do not have core stability which affects their throwing mechanics. This could lead to shoulder injury when they’re older,” Gabby said.